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Visions of Women 7KURXJKWKH/HQVRI%DQYLOOH¶V0DOH3URWDJRQLVW KU LEUVEN FACULTY OF ARTS BLIJDE INKOMSTSTRAAT 21 BOX 3301 3000 LEUVEN, BELGIË Visions of Women 7KURXJKWKH/HQVRI%DQYLOOH¶V0DOH3URWDJRQLVW $VWXG\RIWKHQDUFLVVLVW¶VUHSUHVHQWDWLRQRIwomen LQ%DQYLOOH¶VRHXYUH with a focus on mothers Lize Vandeborght Presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Taal- en Letterkunde. Supervisor: prof. dr. Hedwig Schwall Academic year 2015 - 2016. 124.650 characters Table of Contents Table of Contents ................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ ii Abstract ................................................................................................................................ iii Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 ͳǤǯ ....................................... 3 1.1. Ledas and Alcmenes: Divine Impregnation, Adultery and Unknown Fathers 3 1.2. The Devotion to the Holy Mother and Ghostly Encounters .................................. 6 2. Women as Glorious Mirrors: the Absence of a Female Voice ...................... 13 3. The Other in the Form of Shame: The Female Gaze and Threatening Corporeality ....................................................................................................................... 18 3.1. Eyes of Shame ......................................................................................................................18 3.2. Female Bodies, Sexual Agency and Conspiracy .......................................................26 ͶǤǯ-Oedipal Behaviour ............................................................... 30 4.1. Mothers, Fathers and Siblings .......................................................................................30 4.2. The Maternal Mistress in Ancient Light .....................................................................37 4.3. Womanhood Eclipsed from Eclipse onwards ...........................................................40 5. Women Artified : Different Ways of Seeing and Creating ............................. 44 5.1. Women Abstracted in Images: The Ewig-weibliche ...............................................44 5.2. Recreated women: Paintings, Sculptures and Theatre ........................................47 5.3. Male Voyeurism and Female Exhibitionism: The Convention of The Nude ..53 5.4. Femmes Fatales, Witches and Goddesses ..................................................................55 6. Is Banville an Anti-feminist Writer or not? ........................................................ 57 7. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 58 8. Use of Sigla ..................................................................................................................... 60 9. Works Cited ................................................................................................................... 60 9.1. Primary Literature ............................................................................................................60 9.2. Secondary Literature ........................................................................................................61 9.3. Media ......................................................................................................................................63 i Acknowledgements A special thank you goes to Delphine Lebourgeois for providing the illustration for my cover. Moreover, I would like to thank prof. Schwall for allowing me to indulge in this topic and for inspiring and assisting me wherever possible. Lastly, I would like to thank my friends and family who are a continuous source of inspiration. ii Abstract De representatie van de vrouw in Banvilles oeuvre door de ogen van de mannelijke ik-verteller vormt de thematische kern van deze thesis. Aan de hand van een tekstuele analyse van vijf romans uit diverse periodes, namelijk Mefisto (1986), The Book of Evidence (1989), Eclipse (2000), Ancient Light (2012) en The Blue Guitar (2015), wordt het thema van de moeder en, bij uitbreiding, de vrouw onder de loep genomen. Wat allereerst opvalt tijdens de lezing van die boeken is de inherente paradox in Banvilles fictie: enerzijds is er een afwezigheid van vrouwelijke hoofdpersonages, stemmen en psychologische karaktertekeningen, anderzijds is de mannelijke verteller geobsedHHUGGRRUKHWIHQRPHHQµ9URXZ¶De tekstuele analyse wordt aangevuld met EHVWDDQGRQGHU]RHNRPWUHQW%DQYLOOHVYURXZHQHQHURWLHNHQ2¶&RQQHOOVVWXGLHRYHU de narcistische inborst van diens protagonisten. Bovendien wordt, waar dat relevant is, naar de psychoanalyse verwezen om verschillende aspecten van het narcisme, meer bepaald met betrekking tot vrouwen toe te lichten. In het eerste hoofdstuk wordt de moeder als kernthema in Banvilles romans naar voren geschoven met aandacht voor intertekstuele verwijzingen naar mythes waarin vrouwen, zoals Leda en Alkmene, een goddelijk kind baren van een gespleten vaderfiguur. Bovendien wordt toegelicht hoe de devotie tot de Maagd Maria een rode draad is in Banvilles oeuvre, waardoor de moeder op een transcendentaal niveau alomtegenwoordig is in alle besproken boeken. Het tweede hoofdstuk beschrijft hoe de narcistische verteller vrouwen reduceert tot spiegels. Vervolgens wordt in hoofdstuk drie de dreiging van de alteriteit van de vrouw, gevat in haar blik en lichaam, besproken aan de hand van een veel voorkomend symptoom bij narcisten, namelijk schaamte, tevens een belangrijk thema in Banvilles oeuvre. Hoofdstuk vier belicht het egoïstische en infantiele gedrag van de verteller met de nadruk op hoe hij de vrouw gebruikt als pronkstuk en op het preoedipale karakter van zijn relaties met moeder- en dochterfiguren. In hoofdstuk vijf worden de verschillende defensiemechanismen tegen de verschijning van de vrouw uit de doeken gedaan, namelijk hoe de mannelijke verteller de vrouwelijke personages in zijn omgeving reduceert tot een abstract gegeven en een (lust)object door haar in te bedden in de beeldentaal van kunst, theater en poëzie. Ten slotte wordt ook kort ingegaan op de vraag of de objectivering van vrouwen Banvilles oeuvre antifeministisch kleurt door een beknopt overzicht te geven van het bestaand debat. Samengevat wil deze masterscriptie het belang van het thema van de vrouw en meer iii bepaald de moeder in Banvilles oeuvre aantonen en een alternatieve leessleutel aanreiken om zijn werk anders en vollediger te benaderen. iv Introduction Banville, a widely acclaimed contemporary Irish writer, is not only known for his baroque style, but also for the recurring philosophical themes in his novels: the unreliability of memories; the philosophical and aesthetical questions on life, science and art; the rich density of intertextual allusions and the (post)modernist questioning of the authenticity of identity, to name a few of them. So far, though, %DQYLOOH¶V female characters and the erotic aspect of his oeuvre have received comparatively little attention, whereas Banville himself claimed in an interview that ³>D@UWLVLQIXVHG ZLWKWKHHURWLF«$OODUWLQDZD\FRPHVEDFNWRWKHbody and if you make a real ZRUN RI DUW WKHQ LW ZLOO EH DW D OHYHO RI HURWLFLVP ZKLFK LV YHU\ KLJK´1, thereby implicitly testifying that eroticism is an important theme in his opus. A handful of critics, such as Coughlan, 'HOO¶$PLFR'¶KRNHU*KDVVHPL and Müller have discussed VHYHUDO DVSHFWV RI WKH UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI ZRPHQ LQ %DQYLOOH¶V RHXYUH They all HPSKDVL]H WKDW %DQYLOOH¶V ³IXQGDPHQWDOO\ PDVFXOLQLVW DXWKRU´ 'HOO¶$PLFR objectifies women. It is the goal of this paper to enrich existing researFKRQ%DQYLOOH¶V IHPDOHFKDUDFWHUVE\SURYLGLQJDQHODERUDWHDQDO\VLVRIWKHQDUUDWRU¶VUHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI PRWKHUV ZLYHV PLVWUHVVHV DQG GDXJKWHUV WKURXJKRXW WKH ,ULVK ZULWHU¶V RHXYUH BDVHG RQ 2¶&RQQHOO¶V REVHUYDWLRQ WKDW ³DOPRVW DOO RI >%DQYLOOH¶V@ SURWDgonists are QDUFLVVLVWV LQ ZRUN´ 2¶&RQQHOO VHYHUDODVSHFWV RIWKHQDUFLVVLVWLFWUHDWPHQW RI women will be dealt with and, where relevant, the narcissistic character traits will be briefly clarified by Anglo-Saxon psychoanalysis, which, unlike Freudian and Lacanian theories, focuses on the mother-son relationship and its influence on the male treatment and depiction of women. For the textual study, a selection of five novels from different periods will be analyzed, however not in a chronological order. The first novel that will be discussed is Mefisto (1986) IURP%DQYLOOH¶s Science Tetralogy, which ³H[SORUHVWKHFRQQHFWLRQV EHWZHHQ OLWHUDWXUH DQG VFLHQFH´ 0OOHU The second novel, The Book of Evidence (1989), is part of the Frame Trilogy, where BDQYLOOH¶VZULWLQJ³VKLIWHGIURP DQHSLVWHPRORJLFDOSHUVSHFWLYHWRPRUHRYHUWHWKLFDOFRQFHUQV´ '¶KRNHU³3RUWUDLWRI WKH2WKHUDVD:RPDQZLWK*ORYHV´23). Thirdly, the two novels Eclipse (2000) and 1 7DNHQIURPDQLQWHUYLHZZLWK%DQYLOOHLQWKHGRFXPHQWDU\µ$UW/LYHV± %HLQJ-RKQ%DQYLOOH¶ 1 Ancient Light (2012), which belong to a third trilogy together with Shroud (2002), will be analyzed. The reason why two books from the same trilogy are discussed is EHFDXVH WKH\ ERWK FRQWDLQ YHU\ LQWHUHVWLQJ H[DPSOHV RI WKH QDUUDWRU¶V QDUFLVVLVWLF treatment of women. LaVWO\ %DQYLOOH¶V ODWHVW QRYHO The Blue Guitar (2015) is included in the analysis in order to discern whether there is a chronological development LQ %DQYLOOH¶V UHSUHVHQWDWLRQ RI ZRPHQ In the first chapter %DQYLOOH¶V references
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